NORFOLK, Va. -- Straining under Pentagon cutbacks, U.S. military commanders are trying desperately to spare their troops unbearably long family separations as they respond to expanding global crises.
The Defense Department is determined not to repeat the experience of the last major defense drawdown, in the late 1970s. That era produced what the Pentagon calls "a hollow force" -- understaffed, poorly equipped and demoralized.
"We didn't have enough people to do the job, and as we tried to do the job, we ran them into the ground," said Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda, the new chief of naval operations. "We got into a really terrible situation. No. 1 of my priorities is not to let that happen again."
Here at Atlantic Fleet headquarters, officers are trying to maintain readiness while keeping sailors from being at sea too long. They are stationing ships abroad and flying crews out to them to reduce transit time; making more use of a reserve aircraft carrier; stretching intervals between maintenance so more ships are available; and asking allied navies to do more.
"We have a great Navy," Admiral Boorda said in his first message to the 481,971 sailors he commands. "But as it gets smaller, it simply cannot get in an operation mode where deployments are too long."
Admiral Boorda, a former enlisted man whose rise is attributed in part to his "people background," said, "I think six-month operations are the edge of the envelope."
The length of time that service members are separated from their families is a key factor in whether to re-enlist. Fewer re-enlistmentscan hurt morale and readiness.
A Navy analysis of the years 1979 to 1988 found that
deployments of eight months caused an additional 12.5 percent of first-term recruits not to re-enlist. Most of the additional dropouts were married.
As forces shrink, officers are especially loath to lose the best troops. "Right now, we are keeping them," said Capt. Skip E. Wright, deputy director for plans and operations at Atlantic Fleet headquarters here. "But who can say about tomorrow?"
Can the fleet handle its growing commitments, including crises inthe Adriatic, the Caribbean and the Persian Gulf?
"The answer is, What are our unscheduled commitments, the unplanned-for commitments with which we have to deal?" said Capt. Robert D. Moser, deputy director of operations.
"If nobody changes the commitments . . . we can do it. But there is no flexibility. If any one of them pop, then all of a sudden something's going to have to give, and it's going to be [home port] time."
Outside the briefing room here, the Navy piers are humming as ships of the USS George Washington joint task force prepare to sail tomorrow to the Mediterranean for six months, the peacetime limit for Navy sea service.
Aboard the nuclear attack submarine USS Hyman G. Rickover, Yeoman 1st Class Timothy Baisley, 26, knows that before he returns in six months, his wife, Karen, will have celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary alone, and he will have missed his daughter Holly's third birthday. Karen Baisley, 23, will not be dockside with Holly and Conner, their 1-year-old son, to wave her husband off for the longest deployment of his career.
"The first time I went out and watched the boat leave, I told myself I would not do that again," she said. "It was just too upsetting.
From the destroyer USS Conolly, Chief Petty Officer Timothy Peters, 35, will wave to his wife, Laurie, 33, and their five children. When he returns in September, there will be six children waiting.
Stress could increase
In the larger scheme of things military, such small family landmarks may go unnoticed. They are part of the routine of life at sea. But the stresses and strains that the Baisleys, the Peterses and thousands of other service families routinely face could worsen if crises keep erupting around the world and the defense budget keeps shrinking.
"Right now, we have the same commitments as we had before, when we were working toward a 600-ship Navy," said Chief Peters, an 18-year veteran. "They are doing 18 hours a day now. What more can they ask of these guys, when you have 360 places to be in, and you only have 346 ships available?"
Recalling the departure of career sailors during the last defense drawdown, he said, "If Congress says you can't have the money, then you are going to see it happening again."
By 1999, under Pentagon plans, the Navy is to shrink from 14 aircraft carriers to 12, the Army from 24 divisions to 16, the Air Force from 27 wings to 20, and the Marine Corps from 184,500 troops to 169,000.
Two years ago, 22,000 Marines were deployed overseas for six months or more in fast-response and forward-placed units, ready to respond to regional crises. Today, although the force has shrunk by 22,000, there are 24,000 Marines posted overseas on similar duty.
"The end of the Cold War notwithstanding," said the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. Carl E. Mundy Jr., "the operating tempo for Marines has not diminished, and at present, has even picked up a couple of percentage points."
Cutbacks have critics
Concern about trying to do too much with too little has been central to congressional debate on the 1995 defense budget. Republican critics have warned that defense funding is being cut so deeply and forces stretched so thin that the Pentagon will fall short of its mandate of being able to fight two regional conflicts almost simultaneously and also contribute to expanding peacekeeping operations.
Reflecting the administration's wariness of demands on U.S. forces, the White House has issued new guidelines to limit U.S. participation in U.N. peacekeeping.
About 80,000 U.S. troops were used to support U.N. peacekeeping missions last year, though fewer than 4,000 were directly involved. Most of those 4,000 active U.S. peacekeepers were in Somalia, from which the United States has withdrawn. About 25,000 U.S. troops are earmarked for duty in Bosnia if a peace settlement is reached there. Another force will likely head to Haiti to help instill order once the military dictatorship in Port-au-Prince cedes power.
"Ultimately, it means they meet themselves coming and going," said Army Secretary Togo West. "It's their commanders who worry the most. They worry whether [their time away from home] is going to go up next year, to the point where it is going to fray their ability to charge these kids' batteries, to the point where it is damaging family ties."
Air Force Secretary Sheila E. Widnall, noting that a "high operations tempo" is keeping Air Force specialists away from home for up to 170 days a year, said in the Pentagon's 1994 report: "We are looking closely at this issue to determine what can be done to reduce the impact on our members and their families."
Asked about Army morale, Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, the Army chief of staff, said it was "miraculously good" despite a threefold increase inmissions and a 30 percent drop in funding. The result: The average soldier spends more time away from home -- 140 days a year, serving in any of about 60 countries. Maj. Bill Buckner, an Army spokesman, said this represented an increase since the end of the Cold War but could not provide comparative figures.
"We are asking them to do a lot,"General Sullivan said. "We have succeeded in holding this organization together, but it's fragile."
So fragile did it become in the Marine Corps last year that General Mundy, concerned about family breakdowns among his troops, ordered the enlistment of married recruits to be phased out by 1996. He also ordered recruiters to brief candidates "about the challenging nature of duty as a Marine," including the likely length of family separation.
General Mundy's unusual order created a furor, with critics arguing that it showed how out of touch the military was with family life.
"Even the pope allows his Swiss Guards to be married," said Rep. Patricia Schroeder, a Colorado Democrat who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.
General Mundy quickly rescinded his order -- but not before it registered in the headlines as a measure of military concern about the tensions that service can inflict on family life.